|PIC1|Billy Graham told mourners at a memorial service Saturday to remember his beloved wife, Ruth, who died Thursday at age 87 following a lengthy illness.

"I wish you could look in that casket because she's so beautiful," said Graham. "She was a wonderful woman."

He noted that she surely "had a great reception in heaven."

"The mama that we saw at home was the mama that the world saw," said their son, Franklin, who is now the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He recalled his mother's headstrong and quirky nature, telling the crowd about the time she overcame a locked bedroom door by crawling on the roof, throwing a cup of cold water through his window to wake him.

"I thank you mama for your example, for your love, for your wit, for your humour, for your craziness," he said. "I love you for all of it and I'm going to miss you terribly."

Billy Graham, 88, who is currently confined to the couple's home in North Carolina by several ailments, wasn't expected to speak Saturday but surprised the crowd.

In sight of his 19 grandchildren, he said: "God bless all these grandchildren. Some of them I haven't seen in a long time. Some of them I've never seen."

Family spokesman Larry Ross said later that "the sense of loss is beginning to settle in on him."

Family members held a private burial ceremony Sunday at the new Billy Graham Library in Charlotte.

Born in 1920 to medical missionaries in China, and after spending some of her high school years in what is now North Korea, Ruth Graham vowed to never marry and dreamed of working as a missionary in Tibet.

That changed after she met Billy Graham at Wheaton College in Illinois. They were married in 1943 at Montreat Presbyterian Church, where she attended services for the rest of her life.

As Billy Graham took his crusades and travelling ministry around the country and the world, Ruth Graham usually remained in the small North Carolina mountain town of Montreat, raising their five children while writing poetry, books and counselling college-age youth.

Her sister, Rosa Montgomery, said Graham had charged ahead with her spiritual mindset even as a young girl - once praying that God would soon make her a martyr. She was a devout and lifelong Presbyterian, declining to undergo baptism by immersion even though she was married to a famous Baptist preacher.

Ruth Graham was bedridden for months with degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck, and fell into a coma on Wednesday following a recent bout with pneumonia. A spokesman said she died peacefully with her husband and all five of her children at her bedside.

"Though our hearts are heavy with loss, we dare rejoice, for Ruth is home with you," said Rev. Richard White, Graham's pastor at Montreat Presbyterian. "Her sorrows are ended."